The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

The city of truth cannot be built on the swampy ground of skepticism.

I do not know what your destiny may be, but I do know this, that not one of you will find the happiness that each of you is seeking until you have first sought and found a way in which to unselfishly serve others.

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.

Reincarnation contains a most comforting explanation of reality by means of which Indian thought surmounts difficulties which baffle the thinkers of Europe.

We cannot understand what happens in the universe. What is glorious in it is united with what is full of horror. What is full of meaning is united to what is senseless. The spirit of the universe is at once creative and destructive — it creates while it destroys and destroys while it creates, and therefore it remains to us a riddle. And we must inevitably resign ourselves to this.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.